Sunstone

If you could hie to Kolob, would you need to take a spaceship or a trans-dimensional portal? If you met Cain, would he admit that he moonlights as Big Foot? Are there really monsters swimming in the waters of Utah Lake and Bear Lake?

People in the Mormon tradition have long originated and perpetuated alternative theories of all kinds. From Joseph Smith’s insistence that humanoids live on the moon to Brigham Young’s equal insistence that beings live on the sun. From Jack Anderson’s presentation of ufology in his novel “Millennium” to Travis Walton’s alien abduction narrative being turned into the blockbuster movie “Fire in the Sky.” From Ezra Taft Benson preaching that the Civil Rights Movement was a Communist conspiracy to Anna Lee Skarin’s proclamation that she had attained physical immortality—and so can you!

The number and influence of these alternative theories have drawn scholarly attention from the likes of Jacques Vallee, who said that Joseph Smith’s vision of Moroni had all the markings of a UFO encounter, and Diana Walsh Pasulka, who asks what studying someone else's "impossible" thing might reveal about the shape of our own impossible things.

Sunstone is issuing a call for symposium submissions that explore the places where Mormonism and alternative theories of all kinds converge. How are these theories rooted in Mormonism? How do they affirm it, or question it? How do they disrupt assumed knowledge? How are they coherent? How do they inspire? How do they destroy? [info on submission details and deadlines]

Bring your wildest theories, your favorite unexplained mysteries, and your best questions—whether you come to defend them, debunk them, or just enjoy sitting with the strange for a while.

The truth is out there. And in 2027, Sunstone will be, too!